Along with getting presents it's a lot of fun to give as well.
We filled two IKEA bags full of gifts for our families.
Some of our favorites to give this season:
A very rare ice blue Nintendo DS to Jeremy's mom.
An Andy Warhol Campbell Soup can bag to my sister. 
A delicious sushi dinner for my brother.
Christmas is about giving and getting and we got a lot.
For our home we received:
A Dirt Devil Kurv. How stylish! 
A Calphalon Wok. Nice!
For my feet I got:
These Steve Madden shoes. They're a Balenciaga knock-off and my mom saved $4,100 by getting me the Steve Madden version. 
Frye Engineer boots. Because I'm tough.
For my hair:
A real hairdryer.
Not pictured:
• Left 4 Dead, Gears of War 2 and Call of Duty 5 for Xbox.
• Penguin hat and dress shirts
• White and yellow belts
• Influence by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen
• That Extra Half an Inch by Victoria Beckham
• Food Dehydrator
• A sushi making set
• More clothes and purses and jewelry
• Domino Book of Decorating
I'm sure there was a little more. Thank you to our friends and family for a wonderful Christmas! We loved the gifts but we loved hanging out with you all even more.
Wallpaper has gained a stigma over the past few decades but it's making a comeback. A very cool and hip comeback. The first house I bought I spent hours carefully peeling away some hideous wallpaper out of the front entryway and bathroom. It was so bad, I couldn't even pretend it was cool in an ironic way.
Well, after giving it some consideration I think Jeremy and I should wallpaper a room in our house. It was even suggested by a fellow blogger when we were considering the hallway stripes. I'm thinking the office. It's pretty obvious the walls are not the original plaster and have been replaced with some smooth sheet rock - already set up for us to throw some wallpaper on. 
Ferm Living
The room already has a black chalkboard wall with the Stendig Calendar in the middle. So there's a black and white thing going on in there already. 
Ferm Living
A black and white print could be cool.
Or we could go for something with a little more color.
Ferm Living
Like bronze.
Or a lot more color.
Orla Kiely
Like this orange stem print available from Orla Kiely.
I'm going to sleep on it a little bit but it could happen sooner rather than later.
Every Wednesday Jeremy and I have lunch together. Usually we go to Saturn Grill - it's one of our favorites.
We sit outside, enjoy our lunch and feed the birds our leftover crumbs. 
This might be one of my favorite photos of Jeremy ever. With his European sunglasses, a lil' bit of a beard and his Nooka watch. 
He gets an amazing amount of compliments on this watch and every single time he gives me credit for gifting it to him last Christmas. I don't know how I'll top it this year.
My nephew, Charlie, has a thing for Wall-E. It's more like an obsession. My sister, Charlie's mom, has a thing for dioramas.
Combine the two and it's a recipe for magic.
Together they created Wall-E's home perfectly contained in a shoebox.
When I came across this Wall-E bento I had to send it to my sister immediately. 
How incredible is that?
If I had the time and patience I would create a bento every morning for Jeremy and I. However, I can imagine it would never taste as good as it looks. And I do think that if my mom had made me carrots in the shape of asterisks I probably wouldn't have thrown up in my mouth every time she made me eat them. Just sayin'.
She also made a Professor Layton bento! One of my favorite DS games right now.
Check out more of her bento boxes here.
6 months ago my CEO approached me and my co-worker/friend, Jentry, to design a "diner" space for our company. We acquired a space next door to our office (it was completely empty and abandoned) and had a small(ish) budget to work with.
We started with mood boards and sketches to work from. 
We spent months collecting furniture and decor, hiring contractors and putting everything together.
Today we unveiled the space. To the left is our office and to the right is our new diner space. This is what it looks like as your step off the elevator.
We had our logo painted onto the concrete floor we had poured. We wanted to do stained concrete but there was an issue - so we just painted it.
Jeremy and I were up here last night until about 9:30 mopping, cleaning and covering the windows after Jentry and I had spent the entire day finalizing the space.
The space had to serve as three functions: a kitchen, a lounge and a conference area. We had to seat at least 23 people at a time. What you see here is the kitchen area. The first thing we decided to splurge on was the fridge. It's gorgeous. 
We got a lot of stuff from IKEA - including all the cabinets and sink.
Kitchen details:
This is the same backsplash Jeremy and I have in our kitchen - different color, of course. We also have the same holders for our utensils.
I love this vase. It's from CB2.
Next to the kitchen is our lounge space.
The sectional is IKEA. We have an LCD TV mounted to the wall and a Wii to play.
We painted our columns with chalkboard paint. 
If you want to be inspired read this excerpt from our Employee Brand Book.
The wall behind our couch is a functional collage of chalkboard squares (in red), metal cork/magnetic boards, cork boards, clocks, and plastic food trays. 
Next to our LCD TV is the original Third Degree logo. Our CEO's father-in-law crafted this out of metal with his own hands.
Last is our conference area.
Table from BoConcept, chairs from IKEA. Remember when I said I wanted to do a print on wood? Well, I went ahead and tested it out on our diner space first. My photographer, Simon, shot this photo of the exterior of our building. I had one of our printers print it on two pieces of 4' x 6' x .25" plywood. I LOVE it. To the right is a magazine rack holding our Third Degree Employee brand books.
We all signed our names to this column during the grand opening of the diner (that took place about an hour ago). 
I love this space and feel so lucky to have been given to opportunity to design it with Jentry.
Yay!
Here at my work we have a coffee shop downstairs called Uncommon Grounds. Yesterday was their last day to be open for business. 
Janice (owner), me, Tara (my sister/boss)
Our office brought in a cake and said our goodbyes.
I properly said goodbye by dancing on the bar and letting coworkers take syrup body shots out of my belly button. Okay, not really.
Read about it and see more pics at my sister's blog - Third Degree Creative.
A lot of people are pledging to gift hand-made this year. This means you can make gifts or buy gifts hand-made by other crafty people.
Etsy is probably the best place to find hand-made goods. I even prefer it over something like eBay because you don't have the anxiety of competing for goods in an auction. You can find everything on Etsy - from handmade letterpressed notes to vintage dresses and shoes.
Here are some quick finds I made this morning.
A Striking Flower with Feather Spikes on French Netting - Available in Ivory, White or Black - $24.99
I am fascinated with fascinators. They're making a big comeback and with having just chopped all my hair off I like girlying it up with flowers and feathers. 
These felt flower barrettes for only $5.50 are a more whimsy hair accessory. This seller has a lot of other cute felt goods as well. 
This poster is a must have. Made by one of my favorite bloggers makes these hand silkscreened reproductions of the vintage WWII era poster "Keep Calm & Carry On" available in some lovely colors.
I actually just read that she will be printing these in a metallic silver soon - I might have to snag one for myself. 
I've been toying around with maybe picking up some basmati rice sacks and making some large pillows for our couch out of them. I found this Flour Sack Feather Pillow in Red and Chocolate Brown on Etsy for $19.50. Not quite my style but still very cool.
I once saw a wall filled with vintage letterpress type on Design Sponge and have been scouring antique stores ever since for a cheap bucket full of these. I haven't quite found them yet but this seller is offering a custom name in vintage letterpress blocks - up to 8 letters for $18.
What are some of your favorite Etsy finds? Have you ever bought or sold anything on Etsy?
Around this time last year Oklahoma was hit with a serious ice storm. I remember waking up in the duplex with no heat and the sound of trees coated in ice crashing down in the park and on top of cars in their driveways.
(AP Photo/Enid News & Eagle, Paul Rutherford)
This is truly no exaggeration of what everything looked like.
I called Hallie, a co-worker, that lived across the street from me. She still had power but mine was out. We called our boss and were told that the office would be open for business and to try and get into work somehow.
This is what my car looked like that morning. We decided to take Hallie's after her dad made it over to her house to de-ice her car.
Photo credit unknown.
Probably over half the trees in our park were damaged. It probably took a good 6 months of clean up crews to remove all the limbs from everyone's homes and parks. Dead trees are all over the place and Oklahoma didn't really have that many to begin with. The whole event was devastating.
It was like driving through an icepocalypse and all I could think of was the movie "The Day After Tomorrow". We finally made it to work and were told to go home a couple hours later after a tree had crashed into the roof of our CEO's home.
Over the next few days trees kept on falling on power lines and half of Oklahoma was without power. OG&E trucks were everywhere and I considered slipping one of them a $100 bill to work on my side of the street first. Ha! In the meantime I stayed with my sister - her electric lines are buried. When I pulled up to her house the rest of her street was without power but she had every single light in the house on, and the TV displaying Rudolph and her tree lit for everyone to see. I was convinced that the next house I buy should have buried electric lines and that is still on our "to-do" list.
I was without power for a week. Every day I would swing by the duplex - it was freezing, dark and depressing. With my mag light I would find some clothes and take a shower (my water was heated with gas).
So this week we've been threatened with another ice storm.
I say BRING IT ON.
We are armed with a secret weapon. 
When our house was being inspected our inspector said that he would need to tell us on our report to disable this antique cast-iron fireplace due to safety hazard. But on the side he told us to keep it functional because in the event of another ice storm it could keep our entire house warm.
We've got goose-down comforters, a cow-hide rug (that can be used as a blanket), candles, a gas fireplace and are within walking distance to friends, food and bars. So c'mon ice storm. Hit us again. I dare you.
(Okay, please don't hit us again but if you do I'm prepared.)
